When Love and Hate Collide
by Beer-monster
Summary: Alone in his run down apartment, Heero reflects on his heartbreak and how easy it is for one mistake to twist love into hate, and the pain that occurs when the two emotions clash.


_**When Love and Hate Collide**_

_**By Beer-monster.**_

The pipes hissed and clanked until the tap finally spat out a surge of cool, clear water with a splutter. Then the liquid fell in a thin stream, sloshing noisily as it fell into the basin and was slurped up by the rusty plug hole. The flow was broken by a pair of cupped, quivering hands that soon filled to the brim.

Heero splashed the water on to his face, not to cleanse but to feel its icy caress as the droplets slid down his angular cheeks. Turning the faucet off he glared at the figure in the mirror, leaning against the sink, his hands braced with white knuckles on its rim. The man who stared back from the shining glass seemed vaguely familiar, but yet did not seem to be him. Pale skin was stretched over a gaunt and haggard face.

Thick brown bangs hung limply over his brows, cold droplets beading like dew on the wet ends. Beneath the mussed hair was a pair of hollowed, lifeless eyes, once a storm of intense Prussian blue raged in those eyes, but now they were flat, lifeless disks of vapid ultramarine. A layer of bristled stubble lined his cheeks and chin like the rust of his idle state.

He brushed his teeth quickly and mechanically, jabbing the bristles across his mouth and spitting into the bowl with a fury. Scrubbing the froth from his mouth with the back of his hand he wandered into the living room, stepped awkward and stunted like the wayward stagger of a drunk. The couch squeaked in protest as he fell onto it and grabbed the remote, jabbing it at the TV which flared to life like a jester commanded to perform.

Sound came from the TV in a droning blare; the chirpy and warm voices of the presenters of the morning show mixed with the stern, impassive tones of the news reader and the gentle, comforting words of the talk show host as he cycled through the channels. Images danced across the screen, people, places all smiles and bright colours. Heero wondered if the broadcasts were mocking him.

His eyes had moved from the screen before he could stop them. Eyes once trained to the focus of an assassin now locked onto a new target, picking out the tiny square of pink, flower-printed paper from amongst the tattered reminders and take-out menus also pinned into the cork of the notice board. He ran his gaze of the figures and name written by precise, elegant hand in thick, black ink. Each digit inscribed on that paper was burnt into his memory like a brand, and the name that accompanied it was searing into his soul. He glanced at the corner of the paper where a heart had been scribbled in playful affection, now skewered by the pin that held the note to the wall. Stabbed through the heart, a similar sensation to emotion ache he bore within his own breast, a gesture of sympathetic irony.

The number was there, beckoning him and he glanced at the video phone that had been installed amidst the flaked paint on an adjacent wall. He had the number and the phone but knew he would not make the call, for he did not have the words.

A change of heart or a change of mind, was there a difference? It had changed, but was it her mind telling her to slam the phone down again and again, or had her feelings truly switched, turning love into hate.

Doctor J had always warned him about feelings, how they could rule you, twist you and make you do things that all sense told you not too. So he had, and now he suffered for it. Lust and love were such emotions, and his mentor had warned him not to be wary, not to allow his heart to weaken. Not to let his soul depend on the bond to another. Alone was how he was told to live, and now he was, for divided they stand and united they fall.

The spectrum of human feelings was a capricious cycle. The fires of love and desire were something a person just could not fight, he knew that well. How he had become addicted to her scent, the touch of her skin, the taste of her. Time after time he had let her drive him crazy. However the cycle also held the cold taint of hatred, and the distance between that bitter blackness and the hot surge of romance was minute, a tiny membrane of the soul where one could flow into the other. He had let hit happen, made it happen. Like a taint of dark filth in pure water, her hatred has spread and defused, swallowing the love she had held for him. Love and hate were emotions of the same intensity, like trains on the same track, and eventually they would collide and leave nothing put unceasing pain, crushing the beauty that had once flourished.

He jabbed the button and the TV died with a dull hum and final flash which shrunk into blackness. With a grunt he flung the remote aside, it skimmed across the coffee table knocking old takeout cartons and beer bottle aside like skittles. The fallen trash revealed his gun, the black metal dingy from its neglect and marked with sticking blotches of sweet and sour sauce. The cheerful presenter had been about to launch into an optimistic spiel about the long lasting peace brought about by the end of the last war.

War was something Heero knew well; he had been trained to understand it. Doctor J had taught him the mucky anatomy of conflict right down to the foul entrails of deceit and betrayal. He had studied how one mistake, a slip of the tongue or action taken in a moment of emotional rashness could put countries at each other throats, allowed hatred to grow like a lethal tumour. That was what had happened between them, his one moment of weakness had an act of war, inciting her fury and drawing the lines of battle.

A drop too much alcohol poisoning his mind, the scent of cheap but intoxicating perfume smothering his senses, the press of firm breasts against his hard chest stirring his flesh and it was ruined. Then he was wrapped in lies, millions of them erected like defensive walls. He wore an armoured suit of fabrication and half-truths that he had hoped would shroud his shame, until he could no longer recognise what was real before it smacked him between the eyes.

Heero had wondered back to his bedroom and leant in the doorway, staring the bed they had once shared. The bed sheet lay in a tangled heap that when he was close enough he could swear he still smelt her lingering scent, soaked in into the fabric from her sweat as they lay together, panting and basking in the glow of their passion. Now he slept alone, each night without the comforting rhythm was like a year of loneliness and each week passed like a century.

Why was she putting him through this, he asked himself as his hands balled into fists at his side, did she hate him that much. It was one stupid, drunken mistake, why must he suffer so. Had the heart that bewitched the world turned to stone, or did she even have one at all?

_No ,_he cried silently. She still had a heart, his still had time to change things, a chance to make things right. He would wrap his hands around her heart and take it back.

He had gotten dressed before he had realised it, yanking socks in a rush and flown into a dark, woollen sweater. He folded the long turtle neck over until it brushed the fold of his throat and glanced in the mirror, flashes of blue fire had returned to his eyes. Doctor J had always told him that he could not give up, not if he had something to believe in, and he did. His love he knew was something to believe in, and he knew that this time he had to win. The cost was too high to loose.

His car keys rattled in his hands as he shrugged his dark coat over his arms, the door echoed in the silent apartment block as it slammed closed behind him. He could get passed her guards, he could storm her building if he wanted to, she could not hide from him. This time he would meet her eyes, this time she could not hang up or leave, he would rescue them from the collision.

Heero would watch his love and Relena's hate collide, and see which was stronger.

Another Beer-monster style song fic that I threw together when bored at work once again. I have to say I love this song, and it stirs so many emotions when I listen to it at my desk that I had to write a fic about it before I went insane (even more insane rather). For those who can't tell the song was When love and hate collide by Def Leppard (Yorkshire band)

You could have a change of heart, if you would only change your mind

Instead of slamming down the phone girl, for the hundredth time

I got your number on my wall, but I ain't gonna make that call

When divided we stand baby, united we fall

Got the time got a chance gonna make it

Got my hands on your heart gonna take it

All I know I can't fight this flame

You could have a change of heart, if you would only change your mind

Cause I'm crazy 'bout you baby, time after time

Without you

One night alone Is like a year without you baby

Do you have a heart of stone

Without you

Can't stop the hurt inside

When love and hate collide

I don't wanna fight no more, I don't know what we're fighting for

When we treat each other baby, like an act of war

I could tell a million lies and it would come as no surprise

When the truth is like a stranger, hits you right between the eyes

There's a time and a place and a reason

And I know I got a love to believe in

All I know got to win this time

Repeat Chorus

SOLO

You could have a change of heart, if you would only change your mind

Cause I'm crazy 'bout you baby...Crazy...Crazy

Without you

One night alone

Is like a year without you baby

Do you have a heart of stone

Without you

One night alone

Is like a year without you baby

If you have a heart at all

Without you

Can't stop the hurt inside

When love and hate collide


End file.
